


At Regular Intervals

by carolinecrane



Series: down is where we came from [38]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-04
Updated: 2010-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck knows this much about Christmas:  If you're still awake when Santa shows up, you can kiss your presents goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Regular Intervals

It’s still dark out when Puck wakes up. Kurt’s curled against him, one hand on Puck’s hip and the other curled under the pillow he’s drooling into. His lips are parted a little and he’s making that little wheezing sound in his sleep, the one they don’t refer to as ‘snoring’ if Puck knows what’s good for him.

He’s pretty sure it’s the first time they’ve ever slept in the same bed and not had sex. Well, except for their first date, and Puck grins at the memory of waking up to find Kurt trying to bail on him so he could do the walk of shame without ever getting to the actual shame. They’ve been making up for it ever since, though, and Puck sure as hell doesn’t have any complaints.

Kurt probably would have gone for it tonight if Puck had brought it up, seeing as how Hudson ditched them for his own booty call, but the thing is, Puck doesn’t even mind sticking to the rules anymore.

They’re going to be spending the rest of their lives together, after all, and he figures there are going to be at least a few nights in there when they’re too tired or busy or whatever to fuck. Still, just sleeping next to Kurt is pretty damn awesome, and anyway they’ve had enough sex in the past two days to hold them over for awhile.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but when his stomach rumbles he knows what woke him up. So he leans over Kurt, presses a kiss to his bare shoulder and slides out of bed. He watches Kurt murmur in his sleep and burrow a little further into the pillow, then he tugs the sheet up over Kurt’s shoulders and heads upstairs.

The only thing on his mind is a glass of milk, something quick so he can get back to bed and the warm body waiting for him. He’s not expecting to run into anybody in the quiet house, so when he opens the kitchen door and discovers that he’s not the only one awake, he pauses for a second before he clears his throat and walks into the room.

“Hey, Mrs. H. I didn’t think anybody else was up.”

Carole gives him a tight-lipped smile she doesn’t really mean, then she nods toward the chair opposite her at the table. “Couldn’t sleep. Do you want some hot cocoa?”

Puck shrugs and takes a seat, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. And he doesn’t really want any; what he wants is to get a quick drink so he can get back to Kurt, but he’s not going to tell Mrs. H that he can’t hang out because he has an appointment to watch Kurt _sleep_. That’s a little too ‘creepy stalker’ even for him, even if it is true. Anyway, he gets the feeling she wants something to do, so he doesn’t stop her when she stands up and starts fussing over a pan that’s sitting on the stove.

“I thought Santa blew you off if you were still awake when he showed up.”

Carole laughs and glances over her shoulder at him, and he’s not positive, because he hasn’t been paying that much attention, but it might be the first actual smile he’s gotten out of her in a long time. Years, even, and yeah, he gets that she’s probably still holding the Beth thing against him a little, but it’s cool that she’s willing to let it go for Kurt’s sake.

He’s not sure his own mom would be so cool about it, if this were some fucked up alternate universe where he and Quinn hooked up again after a few years apart. He knows for a fact _she_ hasn’t let the Beth thing go, and she’ll probably be holding it against Puck enough for everyone for the rest of her life. He thinks about telling Mrs. H that it’s cool, his mom’s already got the guilt thing covered, so she can chill if she wants to.

But he knows that’s not what’s keeping her up when she should be sacked out like Burt and Kurt, so he keeps his mouth shut and nods his thanks when she passes him a mug of hot chocolate.

“I think Santa gives passes for worried parents,” she finally says, and Puck looks up at her in time to catch the way she nods at his mug. The one that’s shaped like Santa’s head, the same one he dried just a few hours ago while he was telling Hudson to shut up and go fuck his new boyfriend.

And he doesn’t really want to talk to her about this, mostly because he’s pretty sure he’ll say the wrong thing and make everything worse. Then Kurt will bitch at him for upsetting the weird balance of ignoring the problem and talking about it behind closed doors they’ve got going, and Puck doesn’t really want Kurt mad at him when his mom and sister show up tomorrow.

But the thing is, they never did this ‘pretend the problem’s not there and it’ll go away’ thing at his house. Mostly they just yelled about it until everybody had their say, then they ate some food and moved on.

“Finn’s truck isn’t in the driveway. I thought I heard it start after we went to bed,” she says, watching Puck over the top of her own mug like she thinks maybe he’s going to try to deny it. “When I couldn’t sleep I looked outside and saw that it was gone.”

Puck shrugs and looks down at Santa for a second, but he’s no help at all. And the thing is, he has no idea what she wants to hear. Maybe she wants Puck to come up with a lie that would explain where Hudson’s truck is, like maybe he lent it to somebody or it got stolen or even that Hudson moved it down the block to make room for Schue and Puck’s mom to park tomorrow when they show up for dinner.

That last one might even work if he were trying to sell it to Hudson, but Puck’s known Mrs. H a long time, and he knows she’s not dumb. So he doesn’t lie and try to convince her that Finn’s right downstairs, tucked in the bed across from Kurt’s and dreaming about becoming a real boy or whatever. Instead he shrugs and picks up the Santa mug, burns his tongue on seriously hot hot cocoa, and sets it back down again.

“Yeah, but it’s not like you don’t know where he went, right? No reason to worry.”

She gives him a look that would be right at home on his mom’s face, and Puck barely manages not to flinch. It’s not like he doesn’t know that she’s not crazy about the idea of Finn and Schue; Kurt’s filled him in, and even though Puck still doesn’t really get it, he guesses he can respect why she’s worried. Because Hudson’s kind of an idiot, and he’s always jumped in with both feet when it comes to love, so she maybe has a point about him falling for some dude who’s older and has a pretty lousy track record when it comes to relationships.

Not that Finn’s track record is so great, and Puck never even bothered to _try_ until Kurt, so he’s not exactly lining up to throw the first stone or whatever. And yeah, okay, there’s the whole ‘former teacher’ thing too, but even though Kurt’s tried explaining it, Puck really doesn’t see why it’s a big deal.

“You kids always looked up to Mr. Schuester so much,” Mrs. H is saying, and she’s looking at Puck, but he can tell she’s not really seeing him. “Finn especially. He’s got such a big heart.”

She maybe has a point about the hero worship thing. At least she would have a point if it were five years ago and they were all still in school, but even Finn grew out of the hero worship by their senior year. By then Schue was more like a friend, and yeah, he was still their teacher, but they’d all spent so much time focused on Glee that it didn’t really feel like that anymore. And even then he was never creepy about it, at least not beyond a few thousand yard stares in Hudson’s direction, and he probably didn’t even know he was doing it at the time.

“You know, Mrs. H, back when we were in school there were certain teachers you could go to, if you needed some help getting your grade up.” He pauses and gives her the most significant look he can come up with, but even when she sort of grimaces and looks away he can’t really tell if she gets what he’s saying. “Just a few, not like it’s everybody or anything. Mr. Ryerson was the worst, before they fired him. He didn’t even bother waiting for students to offer, if you know what I mean.”

And now he can tell that she gets it, but everybody in town knows why Ryerson got fired, so it’s not that big a leap to make.

“I mean, not that I’d know firsthand or anything, but there was plenty of talk. Everybody knew who was a sure thing and who you’d have to work at, wear down their moral code a little, you know? But the thing is, Mr. Schuester was never one of them. People tried, but nobody ever got him to take them up on it, not for grades or even for free. And believe me, if somebody had cracked Schue, the whole school would have known about it by lunch.”

He’s pretty sure he’s not making her feel any better. Mostly she just looks really uncomfortable, like maybe she’s regretting getting up to look for Finn’s truck in the first place. But he’s trying to make a point here, and now that he’s started he figures he has to see it through.

“Schue’s a good guy, Mrs. H. He never messed around with students, and I’m pretty sure he never played around when he was married. So if he and Finn have a love connection going or whatever, chances are he’s gonna try to do right by my boy.”

He leaves out the part where he’s pretty sure Schue’s been in love with Finn since high school. Maybe he didn’t know it then, but even if he did, Puck’s almost positive he never would have done anything about it. Hudson’s the one who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow most days, so really if anybody should be freaking out about what he’s getting himself into, it should be Schue.

“I know you boys looked up to him, Noah,” she says, and she’s still sporting that mom expression, the one that makes him laugh even though it’s probably the worst thing he could do.

“Actually, I always thought he was a total dork. Like, prime slushie target, if he wasn’t a teacher. He had the _worst_ fucking taste in music, too, stuff my Nana wouldn’t even listen to. But he’s a stand-up guy. I’d trust him more than a lot of people I know.”

He’s not even sure why he’s telling her all this. It should be Hudson or even Kurt sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the fucking night, drinking hot cocoa out of the Santa mug and trying to sell Mrs. H on the virtues of Will Schuester. But maybe it’s a little easier to hear coming from him, and okay, he _did_ kind of get the ball rolling with Schue and Hudson, so maybe he owes them this much.

He lifts his mug again, and when he doesn’t burn his tongue this time he takes a long swallow of hot cocoa. Then he pushes his chair back and stands up, carries the Santa mug over to the sink and sets it in the basin.

“I better get back downstairs before Kurt wakes up. If he finds out I’ve been running my mouth again he’s just going to get pissy, and that’ll ruin everybody’s Christmas.”

Carole smiles at him like maybe she has some experience with Kurt and his bitch fits. “Your secret’s safe with me. Noah...thank you.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. H. See you in the morning.”

He leaves her staring off into space and heads back to bed, easing the sheet back and sliding onto the mattress as carefully as he can. He’s trying _not_ to wake Kurt, but as soon as he settles down Kurt shifts closer, a hand landing on Puck’s chest and sort of bunching up the t-shirt he pulled on before he went upstairs. “Where were you?”

“Kitchen.”

Kurt makes a little ‘hmm’ noise in his throat and turns into him, then he opens his eyes and shifts up to press their lips together. Puck hooks an arm around his waist and kisses him back, flattening his palm against Kurt’s back and tracing random patterns in his skin. It’s slow and lazy and he has a feeling Kurt’s still half asleep, so it’s not like it’s going anywhere, but Puck doesn’t really care.

Finally Kurt pulls back and blinks at him again, a little more awake now. “Why do you taste like chocolate?”

And yeah, okay, he’d been hoping not to have this conversation, but it’s not like he’s going to lie about it.

“I went upstairs to get a drink, right? I figured everybody was asleep, but when I got there Mrs. H was already up. She seemed like she needed something to take her mind off her baby boy’s sex life, so I let her make me some more hot cocoa.”

“How do you know she was thinking about Finn’s sex life?”

“Because she said so.”

“She did not,” Kurt says, like he can’t believe Mrs. H could even say the words ‘sex life’, let alone to Puck.

“She did, babe. Well, okay, she said she saw that Hudson’s truck was gone and she was up worrying about him. But you know she was totally thinking about how Schue’s compromising his virtue or whatever.”

He sort of expects Kurt to be mad that he talked to Mrs. H at all, but so far he doesn’t look it. Right now he’s kind of smiling, like he thinks the idea of Mrs. H worrying about Finn’s virtue is pretty funny.

“So what did you tell her?”

“I told her the truth,” Puck answers, shrugging against the mattress and shifting a little closer. “That Schue’s a good guy and Hudson could do a lot worse. She thinks Finn’s all confused because he’s got some hero worship thing going on or whatever, so I told her that the truth is Schue’s always been kind of a dork, you know? Not exactly the kind of guy you dream about being when you grow up.”

Kurt snorts a laugh that Puck feels against his neck, and he grins and brushes another kiss against Kurt’s mouth.

“How’d she take that?”

“I don’t know if she believed me, but she seemed okay when I left. She’s probably still up there, trying not to picture Finn and Schue getting all sweaty together.”

He half expects Kurt to get up and go upstairs, maybe sit vigil with Carole until Finn finally drags his slutty ass home. But Kurt just wraps his arms around Puck’s neck and kisses him again, and when he finally pulls back he tucks his head under Puck’s chin and presses his cheek into Puck’s chest.

“Well at least I don’t have to come up with a cover story when Finn isn’t here in the morning.” Kurt yawns into Puck’s shirt, and Puck tightens his arms around Kurt’s back before he closes his eyes. “It was sweet of you to try to reassure her.”

He’s not so sure about that; all he did was tell her the truth, and he didn’t even tell her all of it. But Kurt’s not mad at him for sticking his nose in again, and maybe Mrs. H will actually get a little sleep at some point, so he figures he didn’t totally blow Christmas.

Considering it’s not even his holiday, that’s as much as anybody can expect.


End file.
